"To discover is to appreciate."
- N.L. Costace, legendary explorer before the Great War
"There are many mysteries to be found so long as kingdoms rise and fall and progress is made."
- Unknown
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Water bubbled around the slowly descending form. With a thud, the skeleton landed on the sandy floor of the continental shelf, just before its dip into truly deep waters. Its black orbs penetrated the murky expanse like it was a clear shallow, it watched as small fish floated by, few curious of the new presence. It attempted to touch one, which caused all to rush back, staring on at the creature now from a distance. The skeleton cocked its head, fascinated, and watched for hours at the various sea life teaming the waters. Near the edge, it watched a curious plant sway side to side after catching the sight of its black orbs. It looked like an underwater flame, flickering with abandon as a sort of lighthouse of the sea, glowing upon its surroundings. With slow steps from the water pressure, the skeleton strode towards it, fish now adjusted to it swimming close by just as curious at its action as the skeleton was the plant.
Upon reaching the specimen, the skeleton bent over reminiscent of a dog sniffing at new territory. After moments of this, the skeleton slowly and rather cautiously attempted touching the plant, leaning in further as its bony finger approached. Silent anticipation seemingly boiled in the water inside of the ever curious fish, though they were not very intelligent any beast can be curious. The moment the skeleton made contact, the plant suddenly retracted like a turtle inside of itself, cutting off the glow and causing the skeleton to move its skull back in slight surprise. Near immediately the skeleton prodded at the base of the plant, confused upon what it witnessed. Moments passed and slowly the dimwitted fish swam away, now disinterested as the skeleton was enamored by this little project of sorts it had to incite reaction out of this underwater lamp. It was quite a similar scene to three months prior when the Mitocrasis attempted the same to the skeleton.
Two days actually passed as the skeleton, being a skeleton had a rather one track mind not that it could properly use even that of course, found its attention now focused on some sort of movement over the edge. It kept poking the plant now more out of unconscious habit, though one could say all its actions till now were unconscious to a point, as a dark mass loomed in and out of focus. Not even its magical based sight could penetrate the murk of the true deep of the ocean. It rose now, looming over the edge, the orbs dancing in their sockets seeking out further sight of this new curiosity. Minutes passed without reward till once more it seemingly slithered in and out of sight. The skeleton began stepping towards it, its curiosity demanding so causing it to now float down to the near bottomless depths, its orbs now immersed in a black darker than their own.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Unrealizing the lack of a floor, the skeleton continuously attempted to walk forward, causing it to travel down in a slightly diagonally falling loop. The skeleton had no sense of up or down, thus even when upside down it was unnoticeable to it, same as the reason it kept trying to walk towards the curiosity, though it had learned much, especially since it literally knew nothing, in its time on the mountain it still had no sense of place or being 'grounded' for that matter.
It would be several hours before the skeleton gently landed skull first onto the smoothness of the bottom, its body slowly floating behind it still attempting to walk. It took a few moments for the skeleton to recognize the signs it was not moving. Namely, the fact it was hitting something over and over again with its feet. The skeleton rose problematically, nearly launching itself up, only to keep trying to walk and going about a continuous cycle of landing belly or back, a launch, and repeat. More hours were lost this way till the skeleton unceremoniously landed on its feet, with no delay between its steps, though it was kicking itself off the bottom a bit with each step.
Though lacking sight, the skeleton trudged forwards its mind almost literally only filled with its curiosity towards that sight. Time passed unannounced and having been able to see nothing else its one track continued.
Without warning the skeleton took a rather unfortunate step. It was ripped from its footing, tumbling about seemingly flailing though that was due to being caught in a powerful underwater stream. It was ripped from its present course of direction to parts unknown by many.
As it tumbled, the skeleton was rather unfortunately slammed skull first into a mostly eroded, and rather jagged, slab of rock cracking its skull. It wretched with pain as it felt the new gap on its form to the point where onlookers would think the skeleton was having an epileptic seizure while being thrown around like a ball, only the ball was moving hundred of miles per hour in a swirling mass of water.
Finally, the skeleton was ejected from the stream like a crash test dummy onto the ocean floor, its spasms of pain becoming gradually infrequent in both length and level. It actually found itself in the deepest part of the ocean, the pressure being so immense the magic keeping it together flickered and wavered much like when it fell from the sky. The skeleton lost its semblance of consciousness, its body needing to repair the damage as the ocean currents slowly carted its frame along like a peddler. The few denizens of the deep circled the body, the mark of the skeleton being on its back draped across the ocean floor as the skeleton was ribs up rendering it unable to ensnare any of them in its grip. More time passed and eventually, the skeleton floated alone. For a long time, the skeleton would sleep in the cradle of the oceans arms.
Thus depending on how one looks at the situation, it was very fortunate or unfortunate, for a skeleton that is.